Tenebris
by Clara Barton
Summary: Nine years after the last war, humanity is yet again on the brink of destruction. A new threat emerges from the colonies, one more horrific and defiant than any before. A birthday present for Tina
1. Chapter 1

A/N: For Tina - wishing you a very happy birthday!

A/N: As always, thank you Ro for the support and the beta!

A/N: Set post-canon

Warnings: angst, language, violence, smut, death, gore, vampires, drug use, character death

Pairings: past 1x3x5, past 1x5, past 3x5, past 1x3, 3x?, 1x3x5, 1x3, 1x5, 3x5

 _Tenebris_

"Yer a needy lil' thing, ain't ya?" The words were growled in the slurring drawl peculiar to the L2 colonies, and Trowa shivered at the words, and the hot, wet breath puffing against his cheek as the spacer leaned closer.

Trowa held his ground, standing tall and using his Terran genes, his height and broad shoulders, to his advantage. He was a full head taller than the grizzled spacer - but the spacer easily had thirty or more pounds on him. In addition to the paunch, the spacer had rage, had decades of being worn down by wars and famine.

"Do you have it or not?" Trowa asked, dropping his voice low, narrowing his eyes and doing his best to project the air of a man who could not be intimidated.

The spacer took a step back, putting a hand's breadth of space between them, but as he moved, he reached up and ran the rough, calloused pads of his fingers over Trowa's cheek and neck.

"Ya wouldn' have ta pay me, if ya'd give me ten minutes with that ass o' yers."

Trowa held the other man's gaze.

"That _is_ payment, but it's not what we negotiated. We agreed on fifty creds for six grams. Do you have it or not?" Trowa repeated.

The spacer shoved his hands into the pockets of his well-worn leather coat. The move put Trowa on guard - he hoped the spacer was reaching for the U-477K, but there was every chance he was instead going for a weapon.

Trowa kept his own hands at his sides, open, fingers ready to curl into fists or reach for a weapon.

"Ah, well'n I figured ya might wanna try som'n else - mebbe some tetra er some guan-"

"We already agreed on the U-477K." Trowa kept his voice mild, but he could feel the bitter taste of anxiety begin to churn in his gut.

"Ya, but-"

Trowa stepped forward, and the spacer's eyes widened as he seemed to realize, for the first time, that Trowa could be a threat.

Staying silent, Trowa looked into the man's eyes, daring him to speak.

The spacer licked his lips and his eyes darted left, and then he looked down for a moment before meeting Trowa's gaze again.

 _He didn't have it_.

Everything about the spacer's body language spoke of defeat, and Trowa snarled in irritation.

The spacer took a step back.

"You said you could get it," Trowa reminded the spacer.

"Well, I didn' really figger on you goin' through fifteen grams 'n three days. Ain't like this stuff is jus' handed out at ta commissary."

"Obviously. If it was, I wouldn't have to bother with _you_ ," Trowa pointed out, and the spacer's mouth worked for a moment. "Who is your supplier?" Trowa asked before the spacer could speak up.

"I don' jus' go round givin' out-"

Trowa stepped forward again, and the spacer stepped away. Trowa stalked forward until he had backed the spacer up against the opposite wall of the alley.

Eyes wide, the spacer looked up at Trowa as he leaned in close.

"Yer a frightened lil' thing, aren't ya?" Trowa imitated the man's accent perfectly, then mocked his earlier interest by dragging his lips across the scarred, stubbled cheeks of the man.

The spacer whimpered and tried to squirm away, but Trowa grabbed his shoulders and held him in place.

"We had a deal," Trowa reminded him. "And you reneged. Now tell me what I need to know."

"Ya know that ta K is bad fer ya, right? Ya should really try tetra -fer half ta price! An' I'll even give ya one gram fer free just to-"

Trowa sighed in frustration.

If he wasn't so pressed for time, he would have simply let the spacer off the hook and gone in search of another dealer, but the Circus had an evening show starting in just over an hour, and Trowa did _not_ have the time to just go wander the underground of M235 in search of a more reliable dealer.

He _needed_ the K, and he needed it _now_.

"This is the last time I'll ask nicely. _Who_ is your supplier?"

"Ya really don' wanna go messin' bout wit him when-"

Trowa reached out and wrapped his hand around the man's neck, tightening his grip steadily, ignoring the man's attempts to break free. The spacer never should have let Trowa back him up against the wall - against the wall, the spacer's extra weight didn't help him. It just made it easier for Trowa to block him in.

"Urgh- fekkin' Terran shitbag, lemme- lemme go!" The spacer struggled to speak, sputtering for air, his face going red in the dim light and his eyes bulging. "I'll tell ya - I'll fekkin' tell ya!"

Trowa released him, and the spacer struggled to breathe for a moment.

"Who?" Trowa repeated.

"Magnus - Magnus Grayson."

"Where will I find him?"

The spacer hesitated, and Trowa shifted his hand back towards the man's neck.

"Ta south hemi intake center."

Trowa arched an eyebrow.

"Take me."

The spacer shook his head, hands coming up defensively, as if he could fend Trowa off.

"Nah, nah, nah. Ya can find yer own way ta-"

"What happens if I just stroll into - Magnus? Magnus' hub asking for K? He really just lets _anyone_ walk up?"

The spacer licked his lips, and his eyes darted away from Trowa's again.

"Take me to him, and then we're done," Trowa assured him.

He reached into his trouser pocket, lips twitching when the spacer tensed up and then relaxed at the sight of Trowa pulling a cred chip out.

"Here. Ten creds. So that your time isn't wasted."

The spacer looked at the chip, the holographic stamp of Relena Peacecraft's face catching the faint light and glowing.

After a few seconds of hesitation, he reached out and swiped the chip, ferreting it away in his jacket.

"Fine. I'll take ya. Jus'- jus' don' say I didn' try ta stop ya."

Trowa snorted a laugh, but he stepped back to allow the man to step away from the alley wall. As soon as the spacer had relaxed, however, Trowa draped an arm over his shoulders.

"Shall we?"

The spacer tensed again, but he didn't try to shrug Trowa off. Instead, he grumbled something low and no doubt derogatory under his breath as he started to walk.

Trowa kept pace with him, estimating that the walk to the intake center would take fifteen to twenty minutes. Add in whatever time it would take to get the K and- and Trowa was cutting this very close.

"Yer a lil' young ta be so heavy inta K," the spacer grumbled as they walked.

Trowa had to snort again.

"How do you figure that?"

"Mostly it's ta soldiers who go fer that - all ta kids like tetra an' the lighter shit. There's a difference be'twen gettin' high and gettin' as close to dead as ya can."

"I'm aware," Trowa murmured.

He had, of course, tried tetra - it was cheaper, considerably safer, and while it was addictive, it didn't leave its users curled into anxious, sweaty, vomiting messes when they were sober. But, as the spacer had said, all tetra did was get you high - give you a buzz and a kind of tingling sense of peace with the world that only exacerbated all of Trowa's problems.

The K was the only thing that worked - had been the only thing he had found in three years that gave him the ability to stay steady, to stay numb and to keep _everything_ at bay.

"I mean, yer what, twenty? Twenty-two?"

"Twenty-five."

"Twenty-five an' addicted to K? Ya know ya ain't gonna live a long life on that shit."

Trowa had already lived twenty-five years longer than he should have, all things considered. He should have died so many times over the years - he seriously doubted the K was going to put him into an early grave. But if it did, well, then it did.

"I'm jus' sayin', the tetra won' fek ya up so much. It's easy-like, yanno?"

 _Yanno_.

Said the same way Duo Maxwell had said the word - the same way, Trowa reminded himself, _every_ L2 spacer said it.

He pushed thoughts of his former comrade, of his former _life_ , away. He needed to focus, and he sure as hell didn't need to add any extra ballast to the sinking ship that was his sanity.

"If I wanted tetra, I would ask for it."

Again, the spacer muttered something under his breath, but he didn't try to engage Trowa again - didn't offer any more lectures about the dangers of K or the benefits of tetra.

Trowa was mildly grateful, but the distraction of the spacer's words was sorely missed.

Instead, he found himself focusing more on the neon lights that got progressively more garish and more infrequent as they moved towards the intake.

On most colonies, the intake centers - where refuse was taken to be recycled or repurposed - were considered the least desirable areas for housing and industry, due to the extra radiation they generated. As such, the intake areas had almost uniformly become the home for any nefarious-minded businesses and colonists.

Which meant that it was the best place to get your hands on anything illegal - from drugs to weapons, and every banned good in between.

As they walked through the dark, slightly damp streets, Trowa felt his adrenaline spike.

It wasn't just the fact that they were getting closer to the K that he desperately needed - it was being carried along in the sea of the forgotten - or the willfully ignored.

Grizzled men and women who had to be veterans of the wars brushed past with the haunted, vacant looks of those who had lost pieces of themselves on a distant battlefield.

Low-end prostitutes cajoled potential clients, raucous and demanding, intimidating with their blatant sexuality and volatility.

Bedraggled street urchins darted in and out, clinging to shadows, digging into pockets and trash heaps.

Trowa knew these people. He _was_ one of these people - only, he had managed to scramble up a few rungs. Had pulled himself out of the gutter and into the cockpit of a mobile suit, and he had helped to change the world before finding himself in an uncontrolled free fall, headed back to that same gutter he had climbed out of years ago.

It was depressing, but there was a kind of circular finality to everything in life - to everything Trowa had ever done or failed to do - and this reality only continued the pattern.

"There," the spacer muttered, coming to a stop and jerking his head towards a dark alley and a blue, flickering neon light that was so intense it burned into Trowa's retinas - illuminated the space even when it flickered out.

"Get me through the guards," Trowa said, tightening his grip on the spacer's shoulders when he tried to move away.

"Yer fekkin insane fer wantin' K this fekkin much," the spacer growled, trying to fight Trowa off.

But Trowa shoved him forward, into the alley ahead of him, deciding to keep his hands free.

There was something about the spacer's hesitation that spoke of more than belligerence - the man genuinely did _not_ want to be here.

Perhaps he was behind on selling? Perhaps he owed Magnus Grayson money? Perhaps-

The spacer took off at a dead run, sprinting through puddles and piles of trash recklessly.

Trowa took off after him, his longer legs eating into the spacer's lead, but the blue light flickered out again and when it came back up, the spacer was gone - disappeared into one of the half-dozen side alleys.

Leaving Trowa alone, breathing hard, and a few dozen feet from the flickering light.

He could see now that it wasn't flickering from faulty wiring, but that it was a chase sequence, a blue bolt of lightning flashing over and over again, striking the rusted awning over an equally rusted door.

Slowly, Trowa approached the door, his instincts for survival at war with his need for the K.

As he neared it, the door opened, and Trowa froze.

"Trowa Barton."

He stared into the darkness beyond the door, looking for the source of the deep voice that had spoken his name.

A heartbeat later, and a tall, pale man stepped out into the alley, eyebrows raised.

"Coming or going?"

Trowa looked around the alley, searching for signs of surveillance - but even if there had been a camera to pick up his face, his identity was buried under so many blacked-out passages and classified stamps that it was almost inconceivable that his face would be in a database.

Which meant that someone here _knew_ him.

"Coming," he decided, convinced it was the wrong choice but stepping forward, into the darkness, even so.

The door closed behind him immediately, the resounding clang of it making him actually jump.

The tall, pale man chuckled, and Trowa swallowed hard, fighting against his fear, against the nausea roiling through his belly.

The man started to walk down an almost pitch-black hallway, and Trowa followed him, keeping his hands loose by his sides, ready - he hoped - for whatever was going to happen next.

They walked past dozens of closed doors, up two flights of stairs and down another hallway, before going down three flights of stairs and down yet another hallway until, at last, the man opened a door and stood aside.

Trowa looked between him and the door.

"You wanted to see Magnus, didn't you?" the man prompted. His words, unlike the spacer's before, were clipped and precise and _not_ those of an L2 spacer.

Trowa stepped into the dark room and the door closed behind him, leaving him in pitch-black surroundings.

It was cold, dark, and silent except for the insistent, terrified thud of Trowa's heartbeat.

 _Fuck fuck fuck_.

He turned around, hands scrambling for the doorknob, but instead his hands tangled in fabric. In clothing.

A laugh, low and cold and _familiar,_ echoed throughout the dark room.

"I had such high hopes for you."

Trowa struggled to place the voice. _Who_ was it? Cold and aristocratic, a baritone that had only the slightest of accents.

"You seemed so adept at infiltration, at remaking yourself. And yet… what are you masquerading as these days?"

A cold hand, the skin chillingly soft, traced over Trowa's cheek..

"Back to being a clown?" The voice made a _tsk_ of disappointment. "You should have stayed with Preventers, should have made your career as Une's underling until you were primed to take over and-"

Trowa jerked away from the touch, stumbling back and losing his balance.

He fell, his ass hitting the hard floor and sending a shock of pain up his spine.

"Ah. I see. Couldn't handle getting your hands quite so dirty? Didn't want to keep doing all of those back room murders that needed to be done so that everyone else could stay clean and perfect?"

There was a rustle of fabric and the voice moved closer, lower to the floor - as if the man was crouching directly in front of Trowa.

Again, the frigid hand on his cheek, tracing down to his jaw and then to his neck, fingers gliding over the erratic pulsing vein.

"Oh. No. I was _wrong_." Another cold chuckle. "You _could_ handle it. In fact-" The voice moved even closer, and the next words came out against the shell of Trowa's ear. "In fact, you _loved_ it. You _craved_ those sinners begging for your forgiveness; you _ached_ for the feel of the flesh parting under your knife; you _yearned_ for the warm, bright spill of their blood. You loved every second of it."

Trowa swallowed hard, the words, the touch, the _truth_ overwhelming him.

He tried to move, but suddenly there were two strong arms wrapped around him from behind, two icy hands digging into his arms and another cold chuckle against the curve of his neck.

"Oh, no, Trowa Barton. You came here for something that only _I_ can give you - and I'm not going to let you leave empty-handed."

Trowa knew, with absolute certainty, that whoever this was - Magnus Grayson or not - he was _not_ going to sell Trowa any K.

"You want eternal emptiness. You wish to feel absolutely nothing and to forget _everything_." Another cold chuckle, and then the cold, hard press of lips against Trowa's neck.

He shivered, from the cold, from the pressure on such sensitive skin, from the man's omnipotence.

"Shall I give you what you so desperately want? Shall I take away all of the things that you love? Shall I end this life that you have so little regard for?"

Trowa swallowed hard, his heart still racing, his palms tingling with anticipation, with fear, with-

"Or shall I give you something more? Something that will allow you to live without fear and regret and self-recrimination? Shall I make you something _more_ than Trowa Barton could have ever dreamed of being?"

Trowa drew in a shaky breath.

He was trapped - trapped by the man's strength, by the allure of _both_ his offers, by his own indecisiveness and _fear_ and self-loathing.

Everything the man had said - pulling Trowa's memories and fears and _dreams_ from his mind as if he shared them - echoed through Trowa.

He had spent his entire life running from his past - running from nothing _into_ nothing - and here was a cold shadow offering Trowa two impossible choices.

"Life or death, Trowa. You finally have to choose."

Trowa swallowed again, his mouth almost painfully dry.

"Life," he breathed, thinking of all the lives he had ended, thinking of all the death he had drowned in. Maybe- maybe now it was time to put all of that behind him.

The man gave a full-throated laugh.

"Oh, Trowa. You can _never_ put death behind you - especially not _now_."

The cold lips pressed another kiss to Trowa's neck, parting for an almost scalding-hot tongue to lick at his flesh, and then-

The instant, blinding pain of something sharp and hard tearing through his skin.

Teeth.

Biting into his neck, ripping into his skin while the hot tongue probed the open wound and the lips worked at the skin, caressing and sucking and-

Trowa felt a dizzying rush of sensation, of pain and pleasure and fear and _everything,_ and then he felt absolutely nothing.

-o-


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: For Tina - wishing you a very happy birthday!

A/N: As always, thank you Ro for the support and the beta!

A/N: Set post-canon

Warnings: angst, language, violence, smut, death, gore, vampires, drug use, character death

Pairings: past 1x3x5, past 1x5, past 3x5, past 1x3, 3x?, 1x3x5, 1x3, 1x5, 3x5

 _Tenebris_

Part 2

 _Six Months Later_

"You're wrong. You're just flat-out _wrong_."

Wufei sighed, not bothering to hide his irritation, and he lifted one eyebrow in a silent, mocking invitation.

Across the table, a patronizing sneer on his face and his body indolently sprawled out in a chair, Kevin Abbott leaned forward.

"A show of military force was the _only_ way to put the colonies in their place. Economic sanctions hadn't been working - half of those people just don't even _get_ it, and used the sanctions as an excuse to develop more dangerous underground and black market operations. If the Earth hadn't stepped in and started engaging with colonial rebels _on_ the colonies, the whole Earthsphere would have imploded."

"You think having it _explode_ is preferable," Wufei muttered with a sneer.

Abbott gave a derisive snort.

"Yeah, well, we can all sit back in our chairs and go on and on about how great pacifism is, and searching for diplomatic solutions to conflicts, and extolling the endless virtues of Minister Peacecraft or whatever - but we only have the _chance_ to do that because of the direct military intervention of the Alliance forces. Otherwise, the colonies would have become a black hole that drained all of the Earth's resources and continued to abuse their own citizens simply because they _could_."

Wufei stared at Abbott, taking in his tanned skin, his height, his broad shoulders and chest, his bright blond hair. He was a Terran - and any colonist would be able to see it immediately. Not only was it clear that he had been born on Earth, but he had also clearly never spent significant time in space - not with his skin or bright hair. He was also, Wufei knew from _previous_ arguments, the son of former Alliance officers who had both served in the war. Who had, Wufei had discovered after doing some late-night hacking, participated in the 'direct military intervention' Abbott was so fond of defending.

"Only a colonist," Abbott continued, "would suggest that the Earth should have refrained from military action. Only a _colonist_ would want the Earth to be _weak_."

"And only a blood-thirsty Terran would suggest that the Alliance's use of germ warfare and mobile suit invasions on _peaceful_ colonies was justified. _Weakness_ is engaging unarmed, civilian populations of children and elders. _Weakness_ is exiling millions of people to a derelict colony in the hopes that it vents atmosphere and everyone dies - and when _that_ doesn't work, sending in two separate invasion forces to wipe them out. Genetic cleansing is _weakness_. Wars waged on _civilians_ is _weakness_. Murder-"

"Okay, let's take a pause there," the instructor interrupted Wufei. "See, this is one of the things about recent Earthsphere history that we all have to keep in mind - there are a lot of different viewpoints and, because it's still so recent, a lot of narratives exist that individuals might have a personal attachment to - but also that we don't necessarily have the data to corroborate."

Wufei was irritated at the fact that he had been interrupted, but he was _infuriated_ by the suggestion that his past was somehow a _debatable_ narrative.

He looked around the room, though, and noticed most of the people gathered around the table nodding in agreement as they reached for their datapads to keep typing notes.

"Now, as much as Mr. Abbott and Mr. Chang might have enjoyed that little detour in our lecture, let's get back to discussing the events that led to the assassination of Heero Yuy." The instructor gestured towards the data projection at the center of the table.

Of all the things Wufei _could_ be getting his doctorate in, Colonial History had seemed to not only be the most obvious choice, but the most pertinent. When he had made the decision to go to university five years ago, the state of the Earthsphere had been in such upheaval that there was every chance it would slide into chaos, or possibly even open warfare again.

The decision to leave Preventers and go to school - to walk away from his comrades and the only way of life he had known since the age of 14 - had been a difficult one.

But, even though it had taken several years, two wars and countless conflicts, Wufei had decided to return to the scholarly life that he had, as a child, dreamed of.

Of course, the intervening years had changed Wufei - he was no longer able to pursue learning simply for the sake of knowledge, and his patience for philosophical and ideological debates that ignored reality was almost non-existent.

Especially when they came from some dilettante who had _no_ first-hand knowledge of _anything_ he was talking about.

Wufei forced himself to focus on the lecture and push aside his irritation with Abbott - and with the course instructor, a young Terran professor who, Wufei was certain, had also gone through the war relatively unscathed.

Of the twelve students in the lecture room, perhaps three of them were colonists. Across campus, and certainly in Wufei's courses, that ratio held true - even though the university was on the moon, Terrans outnumbered colonists four to one.

In addition to the small number of colonists at one of the most prestigious universities in the Earth Sphere, there were an even smaller number of veterans from the war - and most of _those_ were former OZ and Alliance soldiers who had been able to apply for government educational grants that simply weren't available to the rebelling colonists.

 _Everything is different, and everything will always be the same_.

Trowa used to say that, used to come back from missions and drop his bag on the floor before sitting by the window and staring vacantly into the distance for minutes or hours - however long it took before Wufei came home to find him there and ask him about the mission. He didn't always have that kind of cynical glib response - sometimes he barely managed a noncommittal shrug, and other times he would offer up a small, somber smirk and say that it had been a success.

Wufei pulled his thoughts out of the past. He rarely thought of Trowa - well, he rarely _allowed_ himself to think of Trowa. And he needed to focus on this lecture.

"...pacificism. So why did Heero Yuy pose such a threat to Alliance forces?" The instructor looked around the room at his students, his eyes glancing over Wufei hurriedly - not since the first two weeks of the semester had the instructor dared to actually make eye contact with Wufei, lest he encourage him to speak out even more.

"Clearly," Abbott started in - assuming, as always, that the entire class waited with baited breath for whatever brilliant gem he wanted to share with them next, "Yuy was trying to upset the natural order of things. He wanted to create some kind of bogus egalitarian system that took away Terran authority and made the colonies _equal_ partners with the Earth. He proposed an economic and political system that was deeply flawed and inherently _dangerous_. If he hadn't been taken out, then it's likely the colonists would have revolted earlier and been more unified - _and_ done more damage to the entire human race."

Wufei could only stare. Sometimes, it was impossible to wrap his mind around the garbage that Abbott in particular, but other Terrans as well, spewed from their mouths.

"Any other thoughts?" The instructor prompted cautiously, eyes darting in Wufei's direction as if to gauge his reaction to Abbott's words.

"So what about the assassinations of Quatre Winner and Relena Peacecraft?" The question was asked by one of the other colonists, Karen Heim, a young woman with blonde hair shaved close to her head.

"What does that have to do with Heero Yuy?" Abbott sneered.

The woman rolled her eyes.

"Nothing - well, not nothing. But it's a counter to _your_ argument. After the wars, an egalitarian government _was_ established that used pacifism and diplomacy to unite all of the Earth Sphere. The Earth and the colonies were in an equal partnership to govern the ES. So, if that was so _unnatural_ , when Quatre Winner and Relena Peacecraft were assassinated three years ago, shouldn't the government have fallen apart? Shouldn't we be faced with another war, or the end of the human race?"

Abbott glared at her, but Heim just stared back at him.

As much as Wufei hated the very _thought_ of siding with Abbott on an issue, he had to speak up.

"Violence isn't the only way to keep the colonies in line. The ESUN is, nominally, an egalitarian governing body. But look at the economics - look at the mining contracts in the Belt, and how heavily those favor Terrans over colonists. Look at the taxation on imports between colonies versus Terran products. Terrans learned their lesson, after Heero Yuy, after the wars - if you want to oppress people, you don't do it with mobile suits and starvation. You do it with government aid and taxes. It's easy to form a revolution around the concept of 'stop murdering and starving us'. It's a lot harder to do it when your rally cry is 'level the inter-colonial tariffs to five percent.' Not to mention the fact that Winner and Peacecraft were killed by colonial extremists, and…"

"And the assassins were gruesomely murdered, and the vid feed played all over the ES," Heim finished for Wufei. She sighed. "Right. I get that. But I'm just saying, living in _peace_ isn't really against human nature. Kevin is suggesting that pacifism is against human nature, and I'm just saying - look, if humans were so devoted to violence and war, wouldn't we have _liked_ that video of the assassins being murdered? Wouldn't there have been cheering in the streets when those eight guys were literally ripped to shreds?"

Heim looked around the room, at the pale faces of her classmates. Everyone was likely thinking back to that day three years ago, remembering where they had been when they had seen the video.

Wufei had been at Preventers HQ, had been in the situation room standing beside Une as the Preventers Director oversaw the operation to capture the eight assassins who had put the Earthsphere on the brink of war by killing the two brightest pacifist leaders on both the Earth and the colonies.

Wufei had stood there, watching a live feed that, for all that it was live, had been on an eight-minute delay because the assassins had holed up in the Asteroid Belt.

Wufei had battled his irritation at not being selected as part of the team sent to bring them in, had felt both anxious and jealous as the feeds from Duo and Trowa's body cams played out over the sit room screens.

Wufei had listened to Une repeatedly order Trowa and Duo to stand down once the assassins had been subdued and their limbs zip-tied together.

But it had been Heero, his visitor's badge shining in the dim light of the sit room, who had tapped on an analyst's screen and ordered her to pull up the feed. It had been Heero who had realized what was happening, before all the rest of them. Heero who had shoved the analyst aside and tried to shut down the separate, illegal, broad spectrum feed of the confrontation that Duo and Trowa were broadcasting on an open channel to the entire Earthsphere.

Wufei had been frozen in place, had stared wide-eyed as Duo and Trowa, their voices muffled and distorted, drew tearful, pleading confessions from the assassins. He had been unable to look away from the sight of the two former Gundam pilots methodically, with unimaginable brutality, killing each assassin, one at a time, while the rest screamed in terror.

The entire sit room had been silent - except for the handful of analysts crying or vomiting at their desks.

All three feeds - the two from the body cams and the third from the camera set up to the side of the room - had cut to darkness as soon as the last assassin passed away with an excruciating gasp of pain.

It had been the last time Wufei had seen Trowa or Duo. The last time he had heard either man's voice.

For him, the video of the assassins being murdered had challenged _everything_ he knew and believed - it had very nearly destroyed him, and it had been his impetus to leave Preventers, to leave _everything_ and try to build a new life for himself.

One that was free of the past.

It was his own fault, then, that he kept having to face it - after all, what was history but the study of humanity's collective mistakes? What was Colonial History if not the examination of everything Wufei had witnessed, had caused, had fled from?

"No one cheered," Heim continued. "Not on L1. I was in a biology class, and when the feed cut into the lecture - people were _crying_. People were _begging_ those two men to stop. Violence isn't part of the natural order. Unless," she turned to Abbott with a sneer, "what were _you_ doing during the feed?"

Abbott scowled, and he picked at the corner of his datapad, refusing to meet Heim's fierce gaze.

"Obviously, no one was cheering - that wasn't… that was something an _animal_ does. That wasn't normal or natural or anything - those two monsters were even worse than the assassins. It was disgusting. There was nothing inspiring, nothing - no one could ever support their actions."

It had been Heero who had first realized that, too. Six months after the incident, six months after Trowa and Duo had vanished into the ether. Heero had realized why they had done it. It wasn't about revenge - not _just_ about revenge. It was about making sure that humanity had absolutely no desire, no _ability_ to pursue an armed rebellion to demand justice for Relena and Quatre. Trowa and Duo had made sure that no one had the stomach to go to war again.

"Maybe if the Alliance had made an example of Heero Yuy's assassin - not ripping him apart, but at least making an effort to _find_ him and bring him to trial, it would have been at least an attempt to appease the colonies. It could have prevented the wars."

"No," Wufei sighed. "It might have prolonged the period before outright war, but humanity _needed_ to see just how devastating a conflict between Earth and the colonies could be so that we rejected the idea entirely. Just like what happened with Winner and Peacecraft. We _needed_ to see what retribution looked like so that we could reject it."

"So," Abbott said with a self-righteous smirk, "the Alliance's actions were justified - without their provocation, humanity-"

" _No_ ," Wufei interrupted him savagely. He hated interruptions, and tried his best never to interrupt someone, regardless of what they were saying, but _this_ was going too far. "There was absolutely no justification for unleashing plagues on the colonies. There is _never_ justification for-"

"Okay, okay," the instructor stood up, his hands splayed out as if he could wave down Wufei's fury. "I think this is actually a good place to stop for the evening. We've had an interesting discussion, and I think that this has been really productive. Next week, we're going to look at the fall of the Peacecraft family on Earth, and the rise of the hardliners in the Alliance."

There was a tense, silent moment as Wufei and Abbott continued to glare at each other, but then Heim walked over to Abbott and ruffled his hair.

"You're such an ignorant fucking ground-pounder," she muttered, before leaning down to kiss him.

Abbott smirked at her, turning away from Wufei.

He couldn't help but watch them, curious and mildly disgusted by how easy it was for Heim to simply ignore the way that Abbott felt about the colonies, the things he said and what he _believed_. It baffled him.

Wufei packed away his things and shrugged on his jacket before leaving the classroom, unconcerned by the clusters of his classmates who shot looks in his direction or muttered things about him under their breaths.

He was used to it. And he was used to ignoring them.

As Wufei fell into stride with the tide of students leaving their evening classes on the Teslane campus, he couldn't help but wonder how many of them found it just as easy as Heim and Abbott to put aside their differences - not to simply coexist, but to be attracted to one another - to _want_ to be in a relationship with someone so seemingly diametrically opposed to their very existence.

For the sake of humanity, Wufei was glad, in a way, that they _could_ find a foundation for a relationship despite everything.

For the sake of logic, he couldn't wrap his head around it.

And for the sake of colonial pride - whatever meager, dormant kernel of it remained in him.

All around Wufei were the signs of progress, of coexistence and _peace_ within the Earthsphere.

The legacy of the wars, of Relena Peacecraft and Quatre Winner.

Even, Wufei had to admit, of Trowa Barton and Duo Maxwell.

It seemed that humanity finally had learned how to live peacefully. Not equally - only a fool would think that the Earth really shared power with the colonies - but at least there wasn't outright war. At least civilians weren't being murdered and-

Wufei, passing by one of the corner news scroll displays, stopped dead in his tracks.

On the enormous screen were images of corpses, pale bodies with open, vacant eyes and scabbed puncture wounds on their necks, arms or legs.

He couldn't hear the newscast voiceover, but he could read the captions across the bottom of the screen.

 _Mystery plague continues to spread in the L2 and L3 colony clusters. Yesterday, M184A in the L1 cluster was discovered to have several victims, bringing the total number of victims to 95,000 over the last three months._

 _So far, only twelve survivors of this plague have been found - and each of those died in a matter of weeks._

 _The first reports of death were thought to be homicides, but last month, scientific analysis of the bodies showed that in addition to the small puncture wounds found on their bodies, each victim had also suffered severe blood loss and their DNA had demonstrated as-yet-unknown mutations._

 _In other news, the rising murder rates in both the L2 and L3 clusters have some citizens wondering if the colonial governments will request the intervention of the ESUN for aid. Just this year, murder rates over both colony clusters have risen by nearly 800%._

 _Speculation that the rising murder rates and the plague could be linked together are as yet inconclusive._

Wufei stared at the screen as the images of plague victims and HAZMAT-suited aid workers disposing of their bodies.

 _Plague_.

The Alliance had tried to wipe out _his_ colony using germ warfare. The Alliance had unleashed several plagues in the L2 cluster in efforts to wipe out the populations, but also to use the colonies as a test lab to perfect their weapons.

Wufei had survived, and so had Duo - and neither could hear the word _plague_ and not wonder if the government was somehow responsible.

95,000 wasn't statistically that overwhelming - not when the combined populations of the L2 and L3 colony clusters was ten billion - but the gruesome, inhuman conditions that the corpses of these plague victims died in had caught the attention of the media immediately.

Wufei had only paid slight attention to the story, just enough to wonder if Trowa was right - if everything would always be the same and if the ESUN had decided to experiment on colonists once again.

But the news of the plague, combined with the rising murder rates, piqued his interest.

 _That_ was not the recipe for continued peace.

Wufei finally looked away from the screens when someone shoved into him from behind.

With a sigh, Wufei straightened back up and continued to walk.

There was a shuttle that ran from the campus to his neighborhood, five kilometers away, but Wufei preferred to walk it.

It took him longer tonight, nearly an hour and a half, because he kept stopping at nearly every corner to see if the news scrolls had any developments to add.

They didn't, and by the time he got home Wufei was tired, hungry and frustrated with both himself and the news scrolls.

His apartment was situated in a quiet, middle income community. Most of his neighbors worked in the mining operations on the Moon, which meant that hours were odd for _everyone_. As a result, Wufei had never really had to even introduce himself to anyone, and he had settled into the anonymity peacefully and gratefully.

It was a one bedroom studio, and Wufei was sure that most Terrans would be horrified at just how small it was. But Wufei had spent most of his life in space, and while he occasionally missed the spacious apartment he had shared with Trowa and Heero on Earth years ago, he didn't mind the cramped quarters. Especially not since he had been able to convert one entire wall of the apartment into bookshelves.

He let himself in, sighing in relief at the familiar scent and _feel_ of his living space.

Putting his keys and bag beside his desk, Wufei toed off his shoes and made his way to the small kitchen to put on the tea kettle and start making his evening meal.

Wufei was halfway across the room when he realized he wasn't alone.

Sitting on the small couch, his back to the door and the streetlights just barely illuminating the fall of his auburn hair over his cheek, was Trowa Barton.

"How the hell did you get into my apartment?"

Trowa turned slightly, looking at Wufei over his shoulder.

"The super let me in."

The answer, so simple and matter-of-fact, gave Wufei pause.

He looked Trowa over. It had been three years since he had seen him, and even now, despite the darkness, the solid strength of his broad shoulders and the almost fragile line of his long, exposed neck were achingly familiar.

"Why?"

Trowa's lips twitched.

"Because I asked nicely. Or maybe because I gave him fifty creds. I also helped him fix the heating unit in 5B."

"No," Wufei growled, "why are you _here_?"

Trowa's throat worked as he swallowed, and he turned away from Wufei's fierce, accusing stare.

"I need you," Trowa finally whispered, his words low and raw.

Wufei stared at his profile.

 _Years_ of anger and loneliness - of questions and fear, of doubt and self-recrimination, of hatred and desire. All of it weighed down on Wufei.

He was frozen in place, unable to move towards Trowa, unable to walk away. Unable to vocalize all of his conflicting emotions.

"I needed _you_ ," Wufei finally bit out. Despite all of it, despite what Trowa had done and despite the fact that Wufei had been left alone and had had to struggle to reconcile Trowa as a vicious murderer with the Trowa he had known intimately as a partner, friend and lover.

"Heero-"

"Heero needed you, too, Trowa. We _both_ needed you. Do you have any idea what - _why_? After everything we did, after everything _you_ did, how could you just turn your back on us?"

Trowa met his gaze again, and there was so much darkness, so much despair in his eyes.

"Better for me to leave you than watch you and Heero walk away from me. I know what I am. I know what I did was… unforgivable."

Wufei stared at him.

"Yes," Wufei agreed, walking towards the couch. "But we've all - you, Heero and I - we _all_ did unforgivable things. Impossible things that no one else could have done or _would_ have done. I can't forgive you for what you did, but I can't judge you for it either."

It was a lesson Wufei had learned from Heero.

With Trowa, Wufei had always felt at ease, had always felt as though he was in the presence of someone who understood him and desired him as an equal. But with Heero, it had been different, had been complicated. Heero had seen Wufei at his worst so many times, had _fought_ him as Wufei made mistake after mistake, and Wufei had always felt it was impossible to measure up to Heero. He had feared, had been so certain that Trowa would simply prefer Heero over Wufei, would see just how righteous and strong Heero was compared to Wufei.

But it had been Heero who had come to Wufei, who had assured Wufei that no one - not Heero, not Trowa, not _anyone_ \- could judge Wufei for the things he had done. They had been children fighting in a war, with the weight of the colonies and the entire Earth Sphere oppressing them as they struggled to survive and make sense of the chaos around them.

 _I will never judge you, Wufei_ , Heero had said as he leaned close and pressed a kiss to Wufei's lips. _But I will stand beside you_.

And he had, until Wufei had told him to go.

Wufei stopped beside the couch, just in front of Trowa's bent legs, and he waited for Trowa to look up at him again.

"I needed _you_ ," he repeated, and Trowa sighed.

"Wufei."

Trowa reached out and wrapped his hands around Wufei's waist, pulling him close and burying his face against the front of Wufei's jacket.

Wufei stared down at his bent head, intimidated by the desperate way Trowa clutched at him, shocked at the feel of him after all of these years.

Cautiously, he raised his right hand to Trowa's head, allowing himself to comb through the long, fine strands of hair that had always refused to be managed or styled.

He could feel the tension in Trowa's body, as if he were waiting for a blow to land, and Wufei felt a sharp stab of despair.

Wufei smoothed his hand down Trowa's cheek, over the smooth skin and the slight stubble, and he shivered at how cold Trowa's skin was.

"I need… Wufei, I need you to kill me."

-o-


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: For Tina - wishing you a very happy birthday! I am SO SO sorry it took me this long to continue it.

A/N: As always, thank you Ro for the support and the beta!

A/N: Set post-canon

A/N: This WAS just going to be three parts, but it, predictably, got away from me. So… it's going to be a bit longer.

Warnings: angst, language, violence, smut, death, gore, vampires, drug use, character death

Pairings: past 1x3x5, past 1x5, past 3x5, past 1x3, 3x?, 1x3x5, 1x3, 1x5, 3x5

 _Tenebris_

Part 3

 _Six Weeks Later_

"It was some of the scariest shit I've ever seen. I'm tellin' ya, Ro - we need to do something about it."

Heero sighed and finally gave Duo his full attention.

His former comrade had spent the years since the war travelling the colonies, picking up odd jobs here and there to make ends meet, but seemingly unable to settle in one place. Heero could sympathize with that - he had tried to, and _that_ had failed rather spectacularly. Maybe Duo had had the right idea all along.

Of course, Duo's surprise visits every few months - breaking into whatever apartment Heero happened to be living in and making himself at home - did a very thorough job of reminding Heero that, whatever disappointments he had faced over his failed relationship with Wufei and Trowa, at least living _alone_ had its merits. Merits that Duo forcefully reminded Heero of.

Merits such as working _alone_ , with no distractions.

Duo, munching away on an apple that Heero was fairly certain was the last one, straightened up under Heero's glare and continued.

"I mean, I know you're busy here, with all your… writing or whatever," Duo gave a dismissive wave to Heero's computer and the open document that he had been working on. Heero flushed. "No, I mean, it's great, Ro. Really. Love your books and I've got 'em all. I even paid for two of them. I'm just _saying_ , maybe you could take a break and help me track down some of these fuckers. You know, for old time's sake and all that."

Heero sighed again and rubbed his eyes.

"Duo, this plague has affected millions. What exactly do you think _we_ can accomplish?"

"I dunno. Ya got a point there. Might as well give up and pack it in. 'S'not like we have a reputation for managing the impossible or anything to uphold."

Heero arched an eyebrow.

"That's what this is about? Upholding your reputation? You want to go off and… and do what, exactly?"

Duo growled in frustration and ran a hand through his bangs.

"I don't fucking know - but something! Heero, people are _dying_ and - and fuck you for thinking this is just me being bored or caring about my fucking reputation."

"You _just_ said- "

"You know what they're calling them? Vampires, Heero. They suck the _blood_ from their victims until they die. And the poor bastards who refuse to _feed_ off other humans waste away and die. This isn't a fucking plague - this is the end of humanity. We have to do _something_. You can't just hide away in your ivory fucking tower while it all burns down. I _know_ you miss them but-"

"This has _nothing_ to do with them," Heero interrupted him, voice low and fierce. Duo, of all people, knew that discussing Wufei and Trowa was completely off-limits. And if he ever forgot, he had the scars to remind himself.

Duo held up his hands in supplication.

"Okay, yeah. Sure. I'm just… I'm just saying, Ro, that we _need_ to figure out where this shit all started. I have some buddies who were on Mars before the colony was evacuated, and they've been saying all this shit about-"

"You really think this started on Mars?"

"I don't _know_ , is what I'm saying. But what if it did? I mean, think about the timing - the first cases of this started showing up, what, a year ago? The same time that the last of the evacuees got back from Mars."

"The living ones," Heero murmured.

The dead ones had been shipped back on a cargo freighter, travelling at a slower speed and passing by the Belt customs station before coming back to the colonies.

Heero frowned.

"What?" Duo asked. "I know that look. You thought of something."

Heero hesitated.

"It's strange… The first reported cases of the plague-"

"Vampirism."

"Whatever. They were reported in the L2 colonies, right?"

Duo nodded.

"But wasn't there…" Heero trailed off as he turned back to his computer and started searching.

"Wasn't there _what_? You know how it drives me crazy when you trail off and go all introspective genius on me."

Heero had to smirk, a little, at that.

"This," he said, and tapped his computer screen triumphantly.

"'Belt mining colony condemned after series of internal structural failures'?" Duo skeptically read the article title.

"When is the last time a colonial structure was condemned due to structural failures?" Heero asked him.

Duo arched an eyebrow.

"I'm guessing you mean a time that pre-dates the Martian evacuation?"

Heero nodded.

Duo sighed and frowned. He took another bite of the apple and chewed thoughtfully.

"I dunno… I'm guessing it would have to be a few hundred years though. Last one I can think of was back in AC 75, when they tried to do that outlier colonial system around L5? And the gravitational fields were wonky as shit because they didn't account for the-"

"Yes, exactly," Heero jumped in. Duo was likely to go on for hours once he got started talking about anything to do with aerospace engineering.

Duo scowled, irritated at being interrupted, but then his face cleared as he realized where Heero was going with this.

"You think it wasn't structural failure - at either of those locations."

Heero shook his head.

"It just doesn't make sense. Aside from incidents related to the war, _no_ colonies or outposts have been condemned because of structure failures since AC 75. So why now? It's been ten years since the last of the mines were cleared out of the Belt, eight years since the last kamikaze ship was disabled - and there is no indication this was terrorism. Internal structural failure?"

Duo swore.

"I'm a fucking idiot. Wait, no, I'm not. A fucking genius. I _said_ it had something to do with Mars - and it does. This shit started there, didn't it? Then it came back on those corpse freighters and spread from there. Fuck. This has been right _there_ the whole fucking time…"

Duo trailed off, his eyes distant.

Despite himself, Heero felt the familiar, if long abandoned, tingle of excitement that he had once felt during the war.

He turned back to his computer terminal and started to pull up the earliest news articles that had, only recently, been linked to the outbreak of the plague. Vampirism.

Heero started to map them, trying to piece together where the epicenter might be.

"Ro."

Duo sounded troubled, Heero's name - or rather, Duo's nickname for him, soft enough that Heero barely heard it.

He looked over at him.

"Did you… did you go to the funeral? For Zechs and Noin?"

Heero shook his head in the negative. The funeral had been only a week after Trowa had left, only two days after Wufei had told Heero to do the same, and he had… he had not been in the right mental place to be in public.

He knew that Une would have liked it, Heero being one of the last living figures from the war who actually _knew_ Zechs and who the general populace still admired.

"Me neither. My invitation must have been lost in the mail," Duo said with a sneer.

"Why?"

"Why didn't I get invited? Probably because the last time I was invited to the palace I told Une she could-"

"No, why do you ask?"

"Because I want to know what state their bodies were in. Were they victims? Were they the _first_ victims?"

It was hard to think of Zechs or Noin, in particular, as a _victim_.

Heero frowned again, and he started to hack into the ESUN's database.

"Uh, Ro, you know I'm all for a little deep-diving to find out state secrets on a Sunday afternoon, but what-"

"How much do body-sized preservation coolers weigh?" Heero interrupted him.

"The fuck if I know. A lot?"

Heero glared at him.

"What? You want me to just… figure it out in my head right now? Jesus fucking… alright, fine. You gotta have the aluminum frame, the siding, the housing for the ultra-cell battery to operate the temp control and the suspension system. Lead lining because of the radiation… Give or take a few kilos, probably about fifteen hundred?"

Heero scowled as he looked at the cargo manifests.

"Then why do _these_ only weigh a thousand kilos?"

"Uh… I've got no fucking clue. Even if they used Gundanium or some other alloy, there's no way to take off five hundred kilos, not to _mention_ body weight and- fuck. Find some vid feed of them being unloaded."

Duo moved so that he was behind Heero, leaning over him, one hand on his shoulder.

It felt entirely too much like old times.

Heero managed to find a recording of the coffins being unloaded, a pale-faced Une standing by to receive them.

"There - see that?" Duo tapped at the screen. "That's not a preservation cooler. That's a Yuki-Haas cargo hold."

"What?" Heero stared at the metal box, wondering how the hell Duo even _knew_ that just by looking at grainy footage.

"Those pressure locks - pieces of shit, mind you, that I could have broken into blindfolded and drunk at the age of two - are Yuki-Haas patents. No one else uses pressure locks like those. And Yuki-Haas doesn't make preservation coolers. They mostly make shitty fucking cargo holds for the transport of non-perishable goods. Lots of government contracts. I'll bet most of the equipment on Mars was shipped out in those pieces of shit."

"How much do they weigh?"

"Empty, probably right at a thousand kilos. And there's no way you'd ship a body back in one - it's lead-lined but it's not airtight. The decomposition over nine months of interstellar flight? Even in a cargo freighter, there _is_ hold life support - they wouldn't have been frozen. Plus, even if they were…" Duo gestured at the screen, at the sun shining down on the funereal procession.

Even if they were, as soon as that freighter started to enter atmo, they would have started to thaw, and by the time they were wheeled out for Une to see, they would have been very ripe.

"So their bodies were left behind on Mars," Heero concluded. "It makes sense to give a state funeral, though, give the people-"

"Ro, their bodies weren't left behind on Mars."

Heero turned to scowl at Duo.

"How do you-"

Duo sighed, and he bit the inside corner of his mouth. One of his many tells.

Heero sighed.

"What did you do?"

"It wasn't- I mean- Look, _someone_ was going to go out there and scavenge."

"You _looted_ the Martian colony?"

"I didn't _loot_ \- Look, it was a Sweeper expedition, and Howie asked me to tag along because I'm pretty familiar with government surveillance systems, yanno, and anyway, there wasn't that much left _to_ loot. The place was a fucking disaster site - but we found the graveyard they made and, you know, it's Mars, so things don't decompose. Well, they sort of flash-freeze and boil, but _after_ that, they don't decompose. We were able to ID all of the bodies there - Zechs and Noin weren't there."

Heero pushed aside the questions he had about that little interstellar pirating mission.

"So if they aren't on Mars, and they weren't shipped back to Earth-

"They started this," Duo concluded. "It's them, Zechs and Noin. They hitched a ride on that cargo freighter, feasted on that belt customs depot and sent those cargo holds back to Earth empty. But- Ro, I mean, you and I are smarter than the average bureaucrat, no question there. But… surely someone, you know, looked inside the fucking boxes and realized they were empty?"

Heero nodded; he had been thinking the same thing.

"So, they know. They _know_ that Noin and Zechs are unaccounted for. And _they_ have all the initial data on this shit, Ro. The ESUN gets notifications for _every_ crisis point, including medical. Preventers has a whole fucking wing dedicated to just analyzing this shit to make sure the colonial unrest threshold isn't surpassed again and- Fucking _Une_ has known about this shit the whole fucking time!"

"Probably," Heero agreed with a sigh.

He wasn't entirely surprised. He wondered, though, if Une were in on it?

He watched the video feed again, but her face was set in the rigid, unfathomable lines of diplomatic restraint. There was absolutely no telling if she knew that Zechs was not, in fact, dead and decaying in the box that passed her by, or if it was off in the L2 colonies marauding around and sucking the blood from innocents.

Heero was still staring at her face, ignoring Duo as he started to rant about government conspiracies, when he heard the insistent ping of a video call.

He looked up, at the left corner of his screen, and saw the incoming data feed location.

The moon.

Heero swallowed hard, his already rushing adrenaline spiking even more.

There were, of course, a _lot_ of people on the moon. Millions.

But only one, he was fairly certain, would be calling _him_.

Or, at least, there was only one person Heero _wanted_ to be calling him from the moon.

He swallowed hard, trying to soothe his anxiety and excitement, and reached out to answer the call.

The screen flickered for a moment, and then the image resolved into the familiar, much-longed-for face.

He was beautiful and perfect, his full lips drawn into a frown and his dark eyes as alive and intelligent as ever, the strength of his will as always at odds with the smooth lines of his cheeks and jaw. He-

"Fei, you look like shit," Duo said, unceremonious and unwelcome.

Duo's assessment, however, made Heero revise his own.

Wufei was pale - even more-so than usual, and there were violet smudges under his eyes, and his hair, always immaculately pulled back, looked as if he had been mussing it with his hands.

He did _not_ look like shit, but he _did_ look unsettled.

"Maxwell," Wufei growled, his fondness for the man who had almost died with him clearly at odds with his irritation over the greeting. "Yuy."

Heero swallowed hard, and Duo, his hand still on Heero's shoulder, gave him a subtle squeeze.

"Hello," Heero managed.

The three men stared at each other in silence, and Heero wondered - he wondered _so_ many things, each of them impossible to give hope to.

Wufei's eyes flicked towards Duo. Subtlety had never been his strong suit. Then again, it hadn't been Heero's either. He turned and gave Duo a look.

Duo snorted a laugh and stepped back, putting the apple in his mouth while he reached for his jacket and shrugged it on.

"Yeah, sure, I'll give you two some time to reminiscence or fight or- or whatever the hell you want to do," Duo grumbled after he had pulled on the coat and removed his jacket. "Oh- but Fei, is there any chance you want to help me track down these fucking vampires and figure out how to save humanity _again_?"

"What?" Wufei looked startled by Duo's question - which, Heero had to admit, probably seemed too apropos of nothing, since that was doubtless _not_ the reason Wufei had called Heero in the first place.

"Ro and I think we've figured out where this shit started - and we're thinking Zechs and Noin have something to do with it."

Wufei's eyes shuttered, and, though it was minute, Heero saw the shift in his body language, saw his guard go up.

"Hm," Wufei said noncommittally. "I…"

"Yeah, yeah, it sounds crazy. I _know_. But-" Duo sighed when Heero glared at him again. "Look, Ro can fill you in on everything. I'll probably be heading out your way soon enough anyway."

Duo offered a jaunty wave at the screen and then, mercifully, left.

Wufei did not relax.

"You know something," Heero accused.

Wufei glared at him.

"Yes," he sighed, and he ran a hand over his hair. "I… I called because of Trowa."

Trowa.

The man who had brought them together, and driven them apart.

Heero frowned, and he fought against the part of himself that started to go down very dark paths at the mention of his former lover.

"You called about Trowa, but you aren't at all surprised that Zechs and Noin have something to do with the plague."

Wufei took off his glasses and rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

"Trowa needs our help."

Four words that would have, at any point in their relationship, had Heero reaching for his gun and jacket and mentally calculating the quickest way to get to Trowa.

And even now, even after all of this time and all of the _silence_ from Trowa and Wufei both, Heero had to fight against the urge to do just that.

He fought it by reminding himself of what he and Duo had just uncovered - what Wufei seemed hell-bent on glossing over.

"Wufei, there is a _plague_ decimating the human population. Trowa-"

"Trowa _has it_ ," Wufei interrupted him, his voice and words cutting. "I'm not at all surprised about Zechs and Noin because Zechs is the one who _infected_ him. Trowa is… Trowa is a vampire."

Heero felt as if he had been jettisoned into space without an EVA suit.

He felt hot and cold at once; he felt anger and fear and desperation. He felt everything and _nothing_. It was as if Wufei's words had flashed through Heero, burning him and then leaving him completely numb.

Trowa.

 _Trowa_.

"I need your help, Heero. I've been trying to deal with this, but he's… he's getting worse."

"You've been _dealing_ with this? _How_?"

Wufei sighed again. "He came to me six weeks ago and asked me to kill him. He… he was infected nine months ago, and he killed several people before he realized he could subsist on a very small amount of blood, but he can't… he can't _live_ like this and it's getting worse. I've been breaking into a local blood bank just to keep him alive, but the synthetics aren't the same as biological blood and his body is starting to break down. I…" Wufei's throat worked, and his eyes, those always passionate eyes, grew wet. "I can't save him, Heero. And I can't kill him. I… I need you."

Just three words, and Heero was reaching for his jacket and gun and-

"We have to save him, Heero."

Those words, however, gave him pause.

Heero had seen the newsreels, had seen the footage of those infected, had seen them waste away to nothing but red eyes and translucent skin. And he had seen the pale, lifeless bodies of their victims.

 _Save_.

Hadn't Heero spent his life trying to save people? Hadn't he saved humanity from itself multiple times?

But he hadn't been able to save Relena, or Quatre.

And Trowa…

"Please," Wufei added, the word so rough and unfamiliar that Heero had to take a moment to make sure he had even heard it. "Please," Wufei repeated. "I can't."

Heero drew in a deep breath, and forced himself to meet Wufei's gaze.

"I'm on my way," he said, offering the only assurance he could.

-o-


End file.
